Thanksgiving Weekend 2008

On Friday morning, Vero and I headed out to Kapuskasing and the trip was pretty good until the obligatory stop at McDonald’s in North Bay.  Why is it that I don’t eat McDonald’s until I hit North Bay?  It’s been imprinted onto my psyche that we must stop there.  Must come with the countless years of passing through and stopping there along HWY 11.

After North Bay we went to fill up with gas and were stuck behind a slew of trucks towing ATVs and sitting there chatting away at the gas pumps.  “Where you hunting this year?”  “Who has the tag?”

“Get out of my way and let me drive another six hours!” my mind screamed.

We did manage to finally get some fuel and Vero took over the driving duties for awhile.  God bless her.  I have grown accustomed to having someone drive for a few hours on the trip and I don’t know how my body would take driving the entire ten hours itself.

When I awoke Vero mentioned that she had been behind 6,261 different trucks towing ATVs and has passed the entire Ontario Provincial Police department who must be out on the road today.  That seemed a little extreme to me but sure enough, the cops didn’t let up that afternoon and neither did the hunters going out for the first big day.

We rolled into Kapuskasing around 5:15 and a tear came down my face as I had to drive through it instead of hanging a right on De L’Etang.  I was heading straight to Hearst this night and it was the first time in my life where I had an extra hour to drive to get to a destination up North.  *sob*

I was following a police officer all the way into Hearst and I thought it may have been Anne-Marie’s husband Steve but Vero pointed out that the person in front of us had hair, whereas Steve shaves his head.  Good point.  I’ll stop tailgating this cruiser.

We arrived, hellos were shared, we sat down and had dinner all around some grand news including the fact that Vero’s family were thinking of putting the house up for sale and moving to Ottawa.  They are not sure if they will do that or not, but they were thinking about that.  Personally, if they could afford to, heck, why not?  Who wouldn’t love to have their family in town?  I sure would but I also realize the financial repercussions of such a move.

The night passed along and I chatted with everyone and got to meet Andreane’s boyfriend Sam who seemed like a nice enough fellow.  We retired for the night where I found some cookies waiting on the bed (thanks to Vero’s grandmother I believe!) and the next day we went to the pizza joint in town to have lunch with Amelie and then headed towards Kapuskasing.

There was no real rush to get into town as Sam had phoned me that morning and let me know the schedule and we would only need to show up around 7PM at the church.  I dropped by their place to pick up a spare video camera that Samantha had borrowed from a friend and saw everyone getting ready.  Everyone seemed surprisingly calm and I realized that nothing could really go wrong that night.

Vero and I then headed home to see Mom and all I heard were complaints about how the computer wasn’t working most of the time.  I thought I had fixed it but it did randomly keep rebooting later that night when I got home after the wedding.  So we’ll have to see what I can think up to fix that problem.

After having some excellent home-made wango tango pizza, Vero and I loaded up all the video equipment and headed to St. Patrick’s church.  I have never been there before and it was a nice enough church.  It even had a second deck which was quite useful for filming.  Vero set up her camera up near the altar and we figured I would be the guy who roamed around looking for a good shot since we couldn’t manage to find a tripod for my camera.  Someone pointed out that I may want to film from upstairs and sure enough, I went up there to find dusty seats but a great view of everything.  The camera zoomed in well and I decided to stay up there while Vero held the floor.  I had a good laugh when she was making hand motions to me but unfortunately I a) Can’t see that far.  Must get glasses. B) Can’t understand video production hand signals anyhow!  It was like she was telling me to lower a crane or something.

The wedding started and an old acquaintance of mine, Mark, ended up upstairs with me taking photos of the wedding.  I got myself positioned in the best position possible but it was still…awkward.  To steady my filming arm I needed to lean up against the rail but to lean against the rail I had to lean off of the bench to the point of realizing that it was probably more comfortable to kneel.  Considering I was in a place to worship, I said a little prayer to grace me with a steady filming hand, or a magical tripod to fall from the skies.  That didn’t happen so I managed to have a decent surgeon hand going on.  In fact, Vero and I reviewed some footage I shot and it didn’t turn out TOO bad.  There was this one part where Vero was freaking out because the camera looked like I had dropped it but I was just moving to get a better angle of Samantha when the rings were being exchanged.

The wedding was nice.  Samantha looked great and Marc-Andre had this great white suit on which I thought was smashing.  His two brothers and Mike were up front playing guitar while everyone walked down the aisle.  Carol was also in the wedding party and she looked like a bridesmaid who was there to give a helping hand at any moment.  Danny said a reading which coincidentally appeared in Wedding Crashers (!).  Marc-Andre’s brother Simon and his wife sang a few tunes throughout the ceremony.  What else can I say about the ceremony?  Pretty standard fare and no kids were screaming their heads off.

Afterwards, we packed up everything and headed to the Centre des Loisirs.  When we arrived there, dire news awaited.  Fred asked if I knew who had the key to the bar.  Turns out that the bar was locked up and everyone was ready to riot!  Well, not really riot, but you know what I mean when you wait 30 minutes between a ceremony and when the bar opens.  We phoned around and I don’t really know who ended up having the key but sometime after the wedding party made their entrance, Fred announced that the bar was now open.  I filmed the mad rush of people charging towards the bar and it may be the best footage of human beings in their element at a wedding.

Mike’s dad’s band started up a set which was killer and Vero and I filmed a bunch of it.  Vero was sort of stuck with the camera in a corner because there were kids running around and we were scared that someone might crash into the camera.  So we basically stayed around the camera for periods of time and I roamed around with the free camera a few times during the night to capture some magic of the crowd.  Later on in the night Vero got rid of the tripod to get more mobile which I think was the better choice during the more ‘adventurous’ moments.  I still remember the cake coming out and everyone crowding around and poor Vero had that gigantic tripod trying to move amongst the crowd.  Ah well, we learn in these moments about what not to do next time.

One of my favourite moments in the night was when John came over and said something like “Wow, it’s pretty nice to see an open bar.”  To this point in the night, I had yet to really stand in line for a drink.  I merely filmed the masses and went on my way.  Clearly I was unaware of the open bar so I moseyed over there to pick up a drink and it was a madhouse so I waited until later.  It was a wishing well type of deal where you pay whatever you think you will drink during the night.  I personally love that style of approach.  It’s got the open bar factor (always a plus!) as well as a nod to “Hey, we don’t want to gouge you on drink prices but at the same time, we wouldn’t mind recouping some of the costs.”  In the end, people don’t come out too bad through these things.  Mom said at the last wedding they were at, the bar cost the couple $2100 and they made $1700 of it back through the wishing well.  A $400 expense is the least of your worries at a wedding!

The next progressed well.  I didn’t know a LOT of people but there were a few familiar faces.  The band was great, the cake smashing (that’s right, smashing) event was grand and all the regular events of the wedding were hilarious to film.  I also managed to get in some good footage of the band playing and I’m hoping Vero did also.  For a little background, the band Bruce plays with has been around for 40 years, or at least most of the members of the band.  From what I know about them, they used to tour around the North quite a bit, maybe not all that far away from Kapuskasing, but definitely around the area.  Nowadays they play at the Legion and other events and I just think there’s a great history there and a great story to be told.  I talked to Vero about wanting to do some form of concert video/documentary type thing on the band and I mentioned this to Bruce.  We’ll have to see if the band is up for it or not.  I envision the next time going home, perhaps getting everyone in a room and interviewing them about the history, or maybe getting one-offs with each of the band members and their thoughts about the band.  I also think I can couple interviews with fans of the band.  I was talking to a few people about the idea and they had some great stories to tell about the band back in the 70s.

The meal at midnight was unreal.  They had a Thanksgiving dinner set up!  I found out that there was one hundred pounds of turkey cooked up for the event!  I wasn’t all that hungry at that hour but I managed to get Vero a plate as she was busy filming near the exit.  We got a few good responses during the ‘congratulations’ message portion of the footage.

At one point near the exit, we hear a smash of glass coming from the coat room and then we see some kids sneak out of the room.  I had a good chuckle at this but I told the kids that they should get a broom and bring it back.  I then nabbed Mike and told him about the glass and he swept it up.  When I got into the room there was a kid helping us clean it up but he kept saying “I didn’t do it, it was Johnny!”.  I reassured him that everything was fine and we’ll just clean it up and get it out of the way.  He kept reiterating that this Johnny (or whatever his name was) was the one who broke it and finally I broke down and gave him some manly advice that sounded like “Son, sometimes you have to be the bigger man and simply help out the people who are going to step on the broken glass and slice their feet.”  He gave me this puzzled look.  I’m sure I would have been puzzled also.

After everything wound down, I helped everyone load up the vehicles and close up shop and when I got home I dropped Vero off and headed over to the Losiers to help unload their vehicles.  I think I was winding up for another beer but soon realized that these guys had been powering on little or no sleep for the past week due to everything happening so they definitely needed some rest!

The next day I got up to fix Mom’s computer and I found a utility to transfer the videos I took on John’s ‘hard drive’ camera onto the Mac.  Somehow, the Mac didn’t like the MPEG format of the videos so I had to find a way to convert them.  No worries, I found them and managed to get some footage onto my Macbook.  I chatted with Mom for awhile and then had lunch and Vero and I headed to the lake where the Losiers were having a shindig at their cottage.  Their was a tent set up and some drinks and appetizers.  It was nice to sit and relax (and see Carol’s parents) and have a few drinks while watching Sam and Marc-Andre open up some gifts.  I warned Samantha to keep her ‘game face’ on; meaning that if she opened a gift that she thought was horrible, she should keep a smile on her face.  There’s nothing worse than seeing the dismay on someone’s face after a gift is given.

We headed back home after a few hours (sadly, we did not get to witness Bruce water ski in his suit, nor have I heard word if he ended up doing it or not) to go see the family for Thanksgiving dinner.  Friends and family gathered and I delivered a really bad Grace as I was trying to remember Mom’s usual Grace and let’s just say I got nowhere near it.  I did managed to scarf down two helpings of dinner and then we retired for the night in the basement trying to digest everything.

The next day Vero and I headed back home with a few of Maureen’s friends in tow and it was a decent trip (other than hitting construction around Arnprior which added an hour to the trip) and we were glad to get back to Ottawa.

It was great to see everyone back in Kap and Hearst for Thanksgiving.  I’m glad that the wedding was a success and I’m sure there’s a ton of stories I’m forgetting to say.  I’m sure most of them will be captured in the video…which I should start working on!

Let me say this about filming weddings.  If you were to do this professionally, you definitely can’t do it at your own family’s wedding.  You will be all over the place and you won’t have a moment to breathe.  We definitely didn’t mind doing for it this wedding as we only knew a handful of people anyhow and it’s a great feeling to have a part in their wedding.  But it would have been a different story if it was our own family’s wedding and we couldn’t live the moment with them.

Sadly, with all the filming all night long, Vero and I didn’t even find the time to take a picture of ourselves with the video cameras.  I’m upset about this forgetfulness so if anyone out there has a photo of us, let me know!